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joltai-showa · 1 day ago

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Top 5 songs

Oh, starting with the hard ones😅

I rarely listen to songs in the traditional sense of the word, mostly the stuff I can hear in anime/video games I play. Never understood the appeal of actively scouring through some artists library in hopes of something good popping up instead of finding these things naturally.

But anyway I'll try to compile something with the ask in mind

1. Shadowlord (I guess the composers would be Okabe Keiichi for the original version and Kuniyuki Takahashi for ver. 122474487139...)

(don't ask why the remaster is named after square root of 2.5. it's Yoko Taro, he's seventy billion galaxies away from us mortals)

Probably my most favorite piece out of entire Nier series OST. Technically has two versions that were in the games: the original Shadowlord for the original version of Nier: Replicant and the "remastered" version for Nier: Replicant ver. 12247... The latter has better sound quality for the chorus and the instruments and is unfortunately missing the organ part for the boss part of the piece. I've seen some people online complain that the new version "lacks soul" due to the better technical qualities, but I love them both in their own ways.

(also sorry not sorry but "lacks soul" is a stupid argument when the chorus in the original sounds like they are singing in a fucking well or smth)

I have an endless amount of love for Nier series because Yoko Taro had managed to create such a gut-wretchengly beautiful world that is completely and utterly doomed. The characters pretty much can never be happy, no matter what they do. Their world is a cruel meaningless joke, and the chance of salvation had long passed. It was always outside of their control, all of them are doomed to death and misery for all eternity.

And yet the main characters try and persevere through it. In such a bleak world, they are still stubbornly (and at times selfishly) seeking meaning in their existence and pursuing the bonds with their friends who are just as doomed as them, because, ultimately, that is the only thing that matters in this ruined world.

You'll see the common pattern through this list and realize that my favorite trope is overcoming the impossible and terrible😅😅😅I love a good angst story, but there's something so fascinating about people finding the answer under utterly hopeless circumstances.

(and as a Naruto blog I gotta mention this but Naruto world is like a kindergarten compared to what Nier world is. like, Naruto world's problems are solvable and pretty much come down to the system shinobi are living under. this shit can be fixed, even without author's "yeah and then they all listened to Naruto say his 12 year old's drivel and all of them instantly became friends :)" Nier series' Earth is so beyond fucked one of the best options the characters there have is literally put a gun to the mouth cuz holy fuck you all are cooked. Obito wouldn't last five minutes in the Nier world, his entire character arc's suffering is comparable to what Nier characters go through on an average morning)

Nier: Automata is the more famous game and it follows this structure: oh, welp, that's a pretty terrible world to be in, but with the power of friendship and love we can go through it all -> WHAT THE FUCK -> aw hell noooo -> NO NO NO WAIT WAIT WAIT -> maybe we all should kill ourselves -> NEVER MIND NEVER KILL YOURSELF I LOVE LIFE THIS IS THE BEST GAME OF ALL TIME. Nier: Replicant is a bit different in that it spends most of its time lulling the player into a false sense of security and (I guess) safety regarding the meaning of what is going on. It feels like a fairy tale - the hero collects his friends, they help save a bunch of people, and then they save the maiden in distress from an the greatest evil of their world aka Shadowlord (who in Japanese is called the Demon Lord just to be even more on the nose about the fairytaleness of it all lol) and his minions, and everyone gets to live happily ever after.

Only that's not what happens. (HEAVY NIER REPLICANT SPOILERS AHEAD)

Shadowlord is a boy who agreed to become the sole savior of humanity just so that his loved one would be saved. He had spent thousands of years hoping for salvation to come, utterly alone and living off of hope that one day he could be reunited with her. He had sacrificed everything for the plan to save the humanity.

And none of that fucking mattered because the plan was doomed from the start. Humanity was never going to survive through the shit thrown on them. And his loved one that he spent thousands of years just for her to return to him? She would have never accepted the salvation that plan offered, and as soon as she returns, she ends her own life right in front of Shadowlord because she could never live a life built on another's suffering.

So, what is Shadowlord as a song? It is the main battle theme for the finale of Nier: Replicant, and it plays during the confrontation between the main characters and Shadowlord - how the fight begins, the events between the phases and how it all ends. And it perfectly encapsulates what it is supposed to be - a theme for a fated fight between the main character and Shadowlord, a fight against something godly, and a fight that would decide humanity's fate. A fight that was always destined to be, and a fight which could never end differently, because everyone was doomed from the start.

And it is the most beautiful thing to hear, because all of this hope and despair is united in one heroic and grand piece that eventually turns to the music box version of Shadowlord - a slow and sad piece that becomes slower and more disjoined while the humanity succumbs to its fate. Because you, as the main character, killed Shadowlord. Because you destroyed the last hope for humanity's salvation. Because you followed through on what was right in your mind, and you ended it all. The heroism and desperation in Shadowlord's theme is not for you, it is for him, and it is the song for humanity's last fight against the death sentence the world had given to it. And no matter how much the instruments swell, no matter how much the choir sings and practically shouts in despair, it all leads to the music box - cold and voiceless, monotonous, dead.

Sorry for rambling so much, it's just one of the most emotional pieces I've listened to lol. It's simply perfect, and I love it so much, even if it is not really a song. If you wanted to know a proper Nier song that I love a lot, I guess it would be Weight of the World, particularly the Japanese version. The music is the exact same for all versions of Weight of the World, but the singer in the Japanese version actually breaks down in tears by the end of it, and the suffering in her voice is so raw and real.

2. Hated by Life Itself (Mafumafu cover)

If I learned of Nier series around 2019, so it's a pretty recent addition to my music library, Hated by Life itself had been with me for a long long while lol, I think at around the time I started actively using the Internet, so 2014? 2015? I didn't listen to Japanese music before my Naruto phase, so probably 2015.

Again, very beautiful song that goes from quiet and somber to loud and desparate. Never learned Japanese to the point I could easily understand by listening to it, but the song is (again, surprise, surprise) about the meaningless of life and how it might all lead to the same end... only this should not be a reason to give up on yourself or others. Even if life is hard, even if it feels like life hates you, you always should live on.

Pretty cool piece, and I think might have kicked off my love for "hopeful doomer songs" lmao

3. Deserving of Life (Amazarashi)

You thought it was a proper song? But it was me, another Nier piece! Wahahahhahaha

Amazarashi is a pretty famous rock band from Japan, they also did openings/endings for My Hero Academia, Tokyo Ghoul and Dororo. From my understanding, they are also pretty big fans of Nier series, so they did a bunch of projects together, and recently did an ending theme for the Nier: Automata ver1.1a anime.

Deserving of Life (and the associated music video) was done as part of Nier: Automata's DLC (called 3C3C1D119440927. you see the naming pattern with this series lol) about the fate of Plato 1728 - a combat weapon that is terrible at... combat. He is not accepted by his kind, and fears violence, so he finds solace in the dolls left by humanity. They become his friends until one day all dolls are destroyed by the fire, which makes him go berserk and kill everyone in his surroundings, friend or foe. In the end, Plato 1728 is destroyed by his allies who took him apart in an attempt to understand his behavior. Plato's body is gone, yet his consiousness remains alive, meanwhile his kind grew fearful of the dolls and now destroy them all.

Deserving of Life happens some time after the events in the game, and show one of Plato's kind destroying the dolls. As the song (which in a sense is about the aftermath of Plato's arc from his POV) goes on, the main character of the video is developing more and more emotions while the dolls continue to be destroyed in more and more fucked up ways and become more human-like in their reactions to the death (to the point Deserving of Life video is blocked in the UK on Youtube for being too disturbing). In the end, the system overseeing Plato's kind kicks in and patches the emotions out of the main character, so all dolls end up being destroyed.

The song itself is about the suffering one goes through while attempting to connect with another, and how much it would have been easier if we did not have hearts to feel the agony of losing someone you care for. And yet, in the end, these moments of connection, these steps taken into another's direction in such a bleak world - all of them are deserving of life.

Overall, another melancholic and emotional song.

4. I believe (music by Meguro Shoji, lyrics by Lotus Juice, vocals by Lyn)

hooray the hopeful doomer songs are over. now it's just the hopeful song.

that's a new song for Persona 5 Royal that plays during "time to fight the final boss of the game but we are not at the boss fight yet so we gotta play something cool and empowering". which works really well! I'm a huge sucker for violins in music, and I believe delivers on that front💋also Lyn's voice is as amazing as always. there's a bunch of cool callbacks to the original "we are fighting the boss of the arc but we are not yet at it so we gotta play something empowering and cool" song aka Life Will Change too. overall a really cool execution, I love the loud deafening intro. got the goosebumps the first time I heard it.

anyway, that's kind of the protagonists' declaration to the main villain of the final arc of Royal (cuz the boss song itself is from the bad guy's POV). we'll defeat you, we'll kick your ass, we'll choose our fate and we don't care what you think is better for us, yada yada. the final arc of Royal is about a guy becoming a god in order to create a perfect world as the real one is far too hard to live in, with all the losses everyone must go through (huh. never heard of this premise before), and the main gang rejecting it due various reasons. overall, I really like this arc, feels a lot more polished and cool compared to a lot of the other arcs (yeah the fucking Okumura and Shido arcs hmmmm?), and I believe is just a cool song overall

5. In the Backroom (syudou)

The 5th ending of Chainsaw man anime. Syudou is actually a rare example of an artist I decided to try to listen to after listening to In The Backroom for like three months on repeat, and I actually have a bunch of other songs of his saved up, he does pretty cool stuff.

(it's still better than what my friend had. she was doing some art projects for her finals and she did not sleep for three days finishing. all the while listening to Chainsaw Blood by Vaudy on repeat. three whole fucking days.)

Can't say anything about the meaning of the song, because I am still not completely sure about what the fuck is going on there. But when syudou sang "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH" I felt that. I started listening to that song during the period of my life when loud screaming felt like most appropriate background noise.

So yeah, that's about it for the list. I'd add a bunch of other OSTs that I like to listen to during work/fic writing and editing: the entire Nier OST (duh), the Hoyo-Mix stuff (no matter how dogshit Genshin Impact gets the composers always deliver. and Honkai Star Rail has a bunch of cool boss themes like Phantylia's and the Harmonious choir thing. the entire second chapter of FQTP was written with Phantylia's boss music as the background. dubstep witch coven goes hard), JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's openings, Hades OST, Persona OST. Recently remembered that I played Undertale in like 2019 and have been reexperiencing its OST too. Love working with ASGORE in the background lol

#jolt showa's ramblings #jolt showa's personal

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